Follow-up practice: integrate conditions, causes and competing explanations

Separate logical requirements from causal evidence, then choose the method the question actually requires.

Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.

1. What you will learn

Separate logical requirements from causal evidence, then choose the method the question actually requires. Attempt these four new problems without notes after a study gap. Explain the decisive restriction before opening feedback.

2. Practice

What is the principal flaw?

Question context

A critic says an engineer's bridge recommendation is mistaken because the engineer once made an inaccurate weather forecast. No connection between forecasting skill and bridge assessment is offered.

It substitutes an unrelated past error for an assessment of the recommendation's reasons.
It assumes all bridges are identical.
It mistakes a percentage for a count.
It proves that the recommendation is false.
It relies on a unanimous expert consensus.

3. Practice

How does the irrigation record function?

Question context

A neighborhood's trees survived a dry summer unusually well. A gardener attributes this to deeper roots. Records show that these trees received no more irrigation than trees in neighboring districts.

It weakens one competing explanation for the survival difference.
It directly measures root depth.
It proves that every competing explanation is false.
It is the conclusion the gardener seeks to establish.
It shows no trees elsewhere survived.

4. Practice

Which conclusion follows?

Question context

Whenever a trial is double-blind, neither participant nor assessor knows the assignment. In this trial, an assessor knew the assignment, although participants did not.

This trial was not double-blind.
No participant benefited.
The trial had no comparison group.
Every assessor knew the assignment.
Participant blinding is impossible.

5. Practice

Which fact most strengthens the recommendation's access rationale?

Question context

A planner recommends extending library hours because late visitors often borrow specialized reference books. The proposed extension will make those books accessible only if staff qualified to retrieve them are available.

Qualified retrieval staff have agreed to work throughout the added hours.
The building has a recently painted entrance.
Some reference books are heavy.
The city has several libraries.
Visitors sometimes read newspapers.

6. What you can do now

Classify errors as interpretation, method or execution. Revisit the preceding worked examples, then try a different problem before returning to these questions.